"D-do I?" Frances said, then laughed nervously. Hector shot Frances a stern glance, then sighed. "I'm sure you do. And how much, pray tell, does he owe you?"

Lord Smythe's face set in a grim frown.

"Sixty pounds."

"I didn't think it was that much." sighed Frances, to himself. "Well, Lord Smythe... you see, I... Sixty pounds... the thing is..." he mumbled, struggling to find the right words. "I don't have it." he said, in an ashamed whisper.

"Pardon?" Lord Smythe looked angry. VERY angry.

Midona half sighed at Frances' uselessness, and stared around at the humans, demons, fae and other creatures around them.

The thing that unsettled Midona was the amount of mortals whom had obviously encountered something other-than-human. They might not recognise the marks on their bodies as the handprints of something with claws where fingers should be, but Midona saw the bruises true forms.

Why?, she found herself thinking. Midona wasn't stupid; young, impulsive and inexperienced perhaps, but not stupid. This was more than just the other's idea of fun. Something was happening here.

Because of Elissa?

In her own time, there was unrest between the courts in her own world and in faerie, laregly caused by the existance of 'the halfling queen' as she had been dubbed, and by recent polital changes, and there was the ever-present threat of war.

But they kept those problems in their own worlds; not involving mortals or those of other alignments unless they needed to.

It's not my buisness.

Midona thought of the unseelie court, of Orin, of Fiachna. Is it?

Of course, she was nearly as powerless as a mortal now.

Unfit to save them, unfit to lead my court. Mortal. Solitary. Prey. I could stay here...live as an ordinary mortal woman of their time...That is cowardly. That is what Kyra did. I won't run away. Unless it'ss for the best this way...?

It was all very confusing. Midona made up her mind. She ran.